He Said/She Said

Too darned long since I have updated the blog. But the real world will have this tendency to intrude and change our plans. I was going to write about the death of a friend, and spring, and starting a new contract, and the annual trip to Temagami. And maybe I yet will.

In the meantime, I am happy to report that we went to a party yesterday, and while I was clueless, Jill suspected and was not altogether surprised when the Giant Squid and his Beloved Unicorn Girl (aka Peter Watts and Caitlin Sweet) announced that they had been married at City Hall on the 19th, and that we were all there to help them celebrate.

We were treated to an audio recording of their vows (click here for a transcript of Peter's, and here for a transcript of Caitlin's). How cool is it when your friends' wedding vows begin

We come here today in defiance of biological reality.

And for anyone who knows Peter, is there any surprise at all that "the Officiant seemed quite disapproving of the whole thing"?



Congrats, you guys! Hope you have a wonderful life together!

Cowboys and Aliens

There will be at least one movie that I will see in a theatre in 2011!

RIP Yoshinobu Nishizaki

Real geeks would know that Yoshinobu Nishizaki was a producer and co-creator of the anime series Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers in its dubbed and edited US version).

Various sources, including Variety, the Japan Times, the Amine News Network, and others report that Nishizaki passed away in a boating accident earlier today, in an ironic twist falling from the deck of a ship named Yamato after his most famous creation. Although rescued from the water, the 75-year old Nishizaki passed away shortly afterward.

One of Nishizaki's final projects was the live action movie Space Battleship Yamato, scheduled for release in Japan in December.

Squid with Hugo

See that? That is one seriously stoked Squidly Dude with his brand new Best Novelette Hugo, and he is clearly making plans for it, likely how to introduce the sharp points on his prize to those American border officials with whom he is most familiar.

Photo credit -- Professor Allan Weiss, who also broke the news about the award this morning. This photo is being used subject to getting Allan's permission, so it might only be temporary.

UPDATE - Jill, Dave, Madeline and Peter himself have blog updates on this event. Peter's entry has lots of photos from Aussiecon 4. You can also read "The Island", Peter's Hugo-award winning story, on his website, or download it as a PDF.

UPDATE 2 - Added 2010 November 23: I did in fact hook up with Allan after he returned from his travels, and he gave me permission to use the photo above.

Congratulations, Peter Watts!

The Hugo Awards website shows that Peter Watts won a Hugo award for "Best Novelette", a story entitled "The Island", appearing in The New Space Opera 2 collection (published by Eos). It is evening in Australia as this is being written, and the Hugo Awards ceremony at Aussiecon 4 has just ended.

Peter is a very talented science fiction writer, in addition to his scientific credentials. The award is well deserved, so congratulations, Peter!

This is perhaps an unworthy thought, but I can't help wondering whether Peter's acceptance speech contained any new and creative uses for his new Hugo award -- specifically on unhelpful border guards...

Tesseracts Thirteen Book Launch

The Toronto book launch of Tesseracts Thirteen was held last Saturday September 12 at BakkaPhoenix Books on Queen Street. Nine of the anthology's authors, including Jill and our friend David Nickle, were on hand to do readings, greet customers, and sign books.
The authors who participated were Kelley Armstrong, Alison Baird, Suzanne Church, Michael Kelly, Jill Snider Lum, David Nickle, Andrea Schlecht, Jean-Louis Trudel, and Edo van Belkom.

During the course of the event, I took a couple of hundred photos [yes shutterbugs R us :-) ] and also successfully videotaped the reading.

Edge Publishing used many of my photos (uncredited, unfortunately, but now you know) on the sidebar of their webpage for EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing/Tesseract Books. Edge also have a blog devoted only to the Tesseracts series, called Totally Tesseracts.

Copies of Tesseracts Thirteen are available from BakkaPhoenix Books in Toronto. If you were so inclined, you could almost certainly contact BakkaPhoenix or Edge Publishing for a copy by mail order. You can also order the book from Chapters Indigo, from Amazon, or for our American friends, from Barnes and Noble.

Following are some photos from the launch event and the impromptu (but traditional) post launch gathering at the Wheat Sheaf pub at King and Bathurst.


Somewhere between forty to fifty people attended (it was hard to count numbers in the bookstore) and it wasn't clear that there was a one-to-one mapping between attendees and book sales. However, the one observation that was possible to make was that the pile of books available diminished substantially during the course of the afternoon.



For the second year in a row, our friends Warren, Ann, and their son Aaron came out to support us by buying a book. Thank you very much, and hopefully there will be more events like this!


The post launch gathering moved down the street to the Wheat Sheaf, where the talk (as you might expect) revolved around science fiction, canlit, and publishing.


As the evening progressed, a pool game started. After defeating Dave Nickle, Brett Savory went looking for other victims, and found a volunteer in Corwin.



Corwin demonstrated that he has a better grasp of applied physics than his old man, especially with regard to the consequences of elastic collisions. However, despite coaching from Dave, he too went down to defeat.


Our evening ended shortly thereafter -- apparently there is a law in Ontario that says a minor can't be in a pub after 9pm.


Our thanks to all those who came to the reading or to the gathering afterward. It was a great party, and a great launch for the book in Toronto!

Additional photos from the launch as well as photos from the gathering afterward are available on Facebook.

Back to Reality

I didn't blog at all in August, but that was because August was pretty event filled:

1 - Our friend Annalee arrived on the first Sunday in August. I picked her up from the airport, while Jill, Michael, Kate, and Sherry conducted a tech writing seminar in the back yard.

2 - A couple of days later, we all headed out to Anticipation, the World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal. We used a rental van, and with six occupants (the three of us plus Annalee plus Michael and Lorna), luggage, and several cases of wine for the Friends of Merril/SF Canada party, the van was pretty packed. In the leadup to departure, I discovered that my driver's license had expired last year. My renewal letter had likely gotten lost in the mail, and I never noticed.

3 - After seven days sampling the delights of the Worldcon and the city of Montreal, we returned to Toronto on a Tuesday. My driver's license renewal was a priority. Annalee returned home to the US a couple of days later on Thursday Aug 13. On Friday, we packed the car, did some final household maintenance, and on Saturday morning headed off to northern Ontario, to our usual spot just south of the town of Temagami.

4 - At Lake Herridge, we had two weeks with friends -- 26 of us the first week, 16 the second. Two weeks later, rested from fresh air, sleep, swimming, starwatching and satellite spotting at night, many fine meals, and an unending array of wine and cocktails and beer, we returned refreshed and renewed. The experience was marred somewhat by Corwin getting sick a couple of days before coming home. His cold escalated to fever, nausea, and vomiting, although after two miserable nights he was on the the mend by the time we began our return trip. The drive home was not the nightmare that I expected it to be - in all, a good thing.

5 - Back home in Toronto, we ended the month of August and moved into the first week of September with unpacking, doing laundry, coping with the aftermath of the garbage strike, getting Corwin ready to start school (which happens tomorrow!), going to the Exhibition and generally getting life organized.

6 - My cousin Cindy got married yesterday. She and her fiance (now husband) Alex had announced their wedding months ago. The wedding took place on a perfect summer day, but unfortunately Jill was sick (still is) and didn't make it. I went with Corwin, and took hundreds of pictures yesterday. The downside of all those pictures is that I will have to sort them. However, the last time we had a large family gathering was for David's funeral. It was good to get together with the family on a happy occasion.

7 - And of course, there are photos from Worldcon as well as Temagami that need to sorted as well.

That was my summer -- how was your's?

Alien encounter - the Chmido

At yesterday's Chandra event, in the Alien By Design workshop that Julie Czerneda ran, I worked with Chris and Michael to construct an alien that would live in an environment specified by Julie.

These were Julie's conditions:
- Daytime temperatures up to +50C, nighttime down to -10C
- Strong and gusty winds up to 100 kn/hr
- extreme dryness for months at a time, followed by a brief interval of heavy rain and flooding
- gravity about 0.75 Earth normal

And, with a table filled with goodies that Julie supplied, the additional requirement was that we had to build a model of the creature as well. This is what we came up with:


The Chmido (first two letters of each of our three names) has a vaguely manta-ray shaped body plan. They are omnivorous aerial predators, hunting in small packs during the day. At night, Chmido family groups and individuals seek shelter in caves on high cliff faces close to the ocean. Chmido wings are integrated, manta-like, into their body. They have a total of 8 limbs. They can stand upright on two rear appendages. The next set of two appendages have a cluster of fleshy manipulator digits at the end. There are two pairs of appendages with an attached web like structure next to the sharklike mouth, allowing a chmido to capture prey (or aerial plant life) in flight.

Chmido have four eyes, which point groundward and ahead while they are in flight, and which point forward when they stand on the ground. They also have two photosensitive spots on their back which allow them to react to predators behind or above them. They breathe through gill slits on their back, moving air through a pumping action. They breathe out through orifices along the trailing edge of their wings. There are specialized organs that produce sound for communication.

Because they are flying creatures, Chmido are quite light for their size, but they are very strong.


Chmido mating rituals involve 3 sexes participating in a complex aerial dance. The three particpants have specialized functions - one to produce sperm, one to produce ova, and one optimized to gestate the fertilized ovum. They bear live young.

Culturally, the Chmido are at a mid-industrial tech level, so no spaceships yet. They understand machines, but have religious objections against building machines that fly. However, their culture is based on striving to be higher than the rest of the pack -- an urge that will eventually drive them into space, once they get over their religion-imposed limits.

The most desirable caves are the ones on the leeward side of cliffs. Because these are rare, the first Chmido forays into technology involved channeling the flood waters during the wet season to use in carving out additional habitats. Through the generations, they have become accomplished hydraulic engineers.

For the model that we built, much of the allotted time was spent discussing the basic creature and agreeing on details. Michael constructed the outer layer, I carved the internal sponge that gave the body shape, Chris did the finicky job of making and attaching the limbs.

Having designed the alien, Julie threw a curve at us. Matching up two groups at random, we were to come up with a First Contact scnario. Michael, Chris, and I were paired up with Lindsay, one of Lorna's staff members, and her partner for this exercise.

In our scenario, the Chmido, in the course of exploring another continent on the same planet, encounter a sentient species which moves through several different forms during its life cycle. A flying form is a juvenile stage which the Chmido initially encounter. Because the Chmido are pack hunters, this probably doesn't end well for the peaceful, telepathic, solitary flying creature. It is likely that the initial Chmido response is "lunch". However, the subterranean-dwelling elders with their enhanced telepathy will allow both species to eventually communicate and reach an understanding. The ability of the others to tunnel deeply into the ground and extract metals is something the Chmido are not well suited for -- this is a partnership which will act to drive both species' technological capability.


And of course, in the process of working through their interspecies cooperation issues over generations, the Chmido and their partners achieve something which could be described as a culturally hard-wrired propensity toward diversity. It is this which allow the Chmido and their partners to get past the serious errors made by human merchants 200 years later when a Chmido starship is mistakenly attacked.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory event at Merril

The Merril Collection hosted a triple barrelled event on Friday evening and Saturday involving a presentation from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a book launch for Julie Czerneda, and a space art retrospective by Jean-Pierre Normand.


Friday's science summary of the work done by Chandra for the last ten years was presented by the Observatory's Lead Education Officer, Donna L. Young, an enthusiastic and knowledgeable speaker. One of the hightlights for me was the composite photo of M101 in Ursa Major -- a giant spiral galaxy seen nearly head-on from our vantage point, and historically used as a marker for establishing the cosmic distance scale.

Photo credit -- X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU/K. Kuntz et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/K. Gordon. Image Scale -- Image is 18 arcmin (114,000 light years) across

The second half of Friday was a book launch and book signing, with a reading from Julie Czerneda, for her novel Rift In The Sky, the third book in a three book series written as a prequel to her Trade Pact Chronicles. Julie had some insightful things to say about the difficulties and pitfalls in writing a prequel trilogy for a trilogy that had already been written and published. I wish Geotge Lucas had considered these things with the same degree of care.

Saturday morning's activities started shortly after 9:30 with some introductory remarks by Professor John R. Percy of U of T and the RASC. Donna spoke some more, and then turned things over to Jean-Pierre for a space art retrospective.

Shortly after this began, Corwin experienced severe stomach cramping and vomiting, and had to be taken home by Jill. I carried him out of the building and across the street, until my arms gave out. Jill took over, while I tried to retrieve the car, from its parking spot underneath the Addiction Research Foundation north across College Street. What I discovered was that there were no regular entrances that allowed one back down to the parking garage, so I circled the building and walked down using the vehicle ramp. Jill and Corwin headed home, and I went back to the library.

Whatever Norwalk-like stomach bug had gotten Corwin continued to make him periodically sick over the next four or five hours until it subsided in the afternoon. By evening he was keeping down liquids and able to eat the official Lum family sick rations of macaroni and soy sauce.

Back at the library, Jean-Pierre concluded his space art slide show, and Donna ran a Stellar Evolution workshop, highlighting the various pathways along which stars could be born and evolve and end.

In the afternoon, Julie ran an Alien By Design workshop session. The lesson of evolution is that life adapts to its environment, and adapts again when things change. The physiological features that we see in life forms are there for valid environment-related reasons. For purposes of the workshop, Julie specified some environmental conditions, and our task was to design an alien being that could plausibly live in that environment and develop intelligence. I did this in conjunction with Michael and Chris, two of the Usual Suspects who also attended this event.

After the Alien By Design workshop, Jean-Pierre did a truly amazing retrospective of his cover and illustration art over nearly thirty years.

In the course of the afternoon, I got Corwin's copy of Orbiter signed by Julie, by Jean-Pierre, and by Eric Choi, author of one of the stories in the collection. I also got a couple of copies of Jean-Pierre's book of artwork, Science Fiction Illustrations, again signed, one of which will go to our friend Hicaru in Japan.

At the end of the day, Julie sent a package of alien-making materials for Corwin. By the time I got home, Corwin was well enough to appreciate it. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with when we (or he by himself) does this exercise.

Phyllis Gotlieb - 1926 to 2009

Phyllis Gotlieb, noted Canadian poet and science fiction author passed away earlier this week on July 15. She was 82 years old. We last saw Phyllis the previous year on June 5th 2008 at the Merril Collection, at a special event where she was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by SF Canada.

Phyllis' novel O Master Caliban had been published shortly before I began participating in organized science fiction related activities. In all of our encounters, I remember her as unfailingly warm and gracious.

2009 Hugo Nominations

The 2009 Hugo Award nominations list has been out for nearly a week. Among the Usual Suspects, it was not surprisingly (but disappointing nonetheless) Jill's and Michael's story didn't make the cut. Nor did Dave's story. However, what was very very surprising (and very very disappointing) was that Karl's novel Pirate Sun failed to make it onto the ballot.

The good news, however, is that Metatropolis, an audiobook that Karl co-authored, was nominated -- the first audiobook to be nominated for the Hugo.

Tesseracts Twelve contributor Gord Sellar is up for the John W. Campbell award.

And finally, local fan artist Taral Wayne whom I have known for nearly thirty years, was nominated for the Fan Artist Hugo.

Best Wedding Clothes

I am not usually a fan of wedding clothing, but this deserves special mention. The link takes you to cayusa's Flickr photstream, and a photo apparently from a science fiction convention called Dragon Con.

Jill and I need to get costumes like this for this upcoming Hallowe'en!

More FanExpo

When Corwin and I went to FanExpo on Saturday the 23rd to see Buzz Aldrin's public presentation, we stayed for the whole afternoon after it was over.


It may not have been obvious, but my son is a Star Wars fanboy, so the above photo-op, right next to the recruitment centre for the Rebel Legion and the 501st Clone Trooper battalion was a no-brainer for us.


I started going to science fiction conventions when I was a teenager, but never met anyone like the lovely young woman who allowed me to take her photo. Corwin says that the costume comes from the Kingdom Hearts video game. Clearly, my focus on books for all these years may have been the wrong thing :-)

Corwin's reason for going to FanExpo was, of course, gaming. He managed to get in several games of Halo 2 on an X-Box 360 gaming network that had been set up there, as well as some time on a Wii. I like the Wii's interactive capabilities and peripherals. Not sure that it is going to be the next game system in the family, though.

UPDATE - Mike pointed out that the woman in the photo is cosplaying as a character called Yoko from Gainax's latest anime series, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Corwin did not remember the encounter, but did so as soon as he was reminded of the sniper rifle. (Note - I expect his priorities to change radically over the next two to three years). He clarified his statement, which I misunderstood, that it was the woman's companion (not in the picture) who was cosplaying as Sora from Kingdom Hearts.

Heinlein Centennial

Saturday July 7 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Anson Heinlein, the science fiction author whose work I read (and was occasionally troubled by) through my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

I discovered Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo on the shelves of the school in Wonowon when I was in Grade 4, and by the time I finished Grade 8 in Fort St. John, I had read all of his juveniles -- the books that he had written for a teen audience. I was thirteen years old when I first read Stranger in A Strange Land -- a book that I would often return to in my teens and early adulthood.

The Heinlein Centennial convention over the weekend in Kansas City would have been a great event to have attended, but to my everlasting regret, it became clear by about May that I wouldn't be able to to go.

The Space Review website has a recent article about a memo which Heinlein wrote in his final days at the Naval Air Materials Center, where he worked during World War Two. This memo, much of which in hindsight is wrong, is still nonetheless inspiring. And it is interesting to consider that 60 years later, private enterprises like SpaceX or Bigelow Aerospace are starting to do some of the things that Heinlein thought should be starting immediately after World War Two.

Through the years, many authors have been hyped by their publishers as being the successor to Robert A. Heinlein. None of these assertions have been true -- even for authors whose talent I respect. More often than not, such a statement on a cover blurb or a review has just been hype, and the author in question has demonstrated very little substance in ideas or writing to justify such a comparison to the Master.

Heinlein remains one of a kind, the quirky, visionary genius and storyteller whose work defined the field of English language science fiction for much of the twentieth century.

Worldcon 2006

We are at LACon IV, the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, here at the Anaheim Convention Center in the suburbs of Los Angeles. This has been a pretty low key event for us. I haven't been to many program events, but it has been a great opportunity to see friends.

The highlight so far is captured in this photograph which shows (left to right) Karl Schroeder, me, and Jean-Pierre Normand, taken at the Edge Publishers table in the Dealer's Room. Karl is seated behind a copy of his short story collection The Engine of Recall, for which Jean-Pierre did the cover art.



UPDATE: The 2006 Hugo Awards were given out on Saturday night. This is a partial list:

Best Novel - Robert Charles Wilson for Spin from Tor Books -- a well deserved victory, and doubly sweet since Bob Wilson is from Toronto (although he now lives on the West Coast)

Best Novella - Connie Willis for Inside Job, published in Asimov's January 2005

Best Novellette - Peter S. Beagle for Two Hearts, published in F&SF October/November 2005

Best Short Story - David D. Levine for Tk'tk'tk, published in Asimov's Asimov's 2005

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form - Serenity (Universal Pictures/Mutant Ennemy, Inc.) Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

John Scalzi won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, in his first year of eligibility. Again, well deserved. Note - if Scalzi is an A-list blogger, then I most likely don't even make the scale!

Someone else will undoubtedly put the full list up soon, but these are the highlights.

New Heinlein Novel

Spider Robinson's Diary for 12 April, 2004 makes reference to the novel "Variable Star" which will be forthcoming from Tor books sometime in '05 or '06. Spider will be writing this book based on Robert Heinlein's plot outline, character sketches, and notes.